1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to mobile computing device security.
2. Description of the Background Art
Mobile operating systems are designed to work on computers that are constrained in terms of memory and processor speed. An application program for a mobile operating system, referred to as an “app,” is especially designed to work with the corresponding mobile operating system. Apps may be readily obtained from app stores.
The ANDROID operating system is a popular mobile operating system employed in mobile computing devices, including smartphones and tablets. An app for the ANDROID operating system comes in a file referred to as the ANDROID application package (APK) file. The APK file contains, among other data, a Dalvik executable (DEX) file that contains DEX program code, which is parsed and loaded by a Dalvik process virtual machine (Dalvik VM) for execution at runtime.
One problem with APK files is that they can be readily tampered. More specifically, an APK file can be unpacked to expose the included DEX file. The DEX program code of the DEX file can then be reversed engineered or modified for malicious, copying, or other purposes. As a particular example, the DEX file may be infected with a computer virus and repackaged back into the APK file.